What to spend money on, what not to

[KrozFan]

I'm strongly considering starting a blog. I want to be able to make some money off it, but I'm not looking to go pro with it or anything. I was wondering what people would suggest as far as paid services either to use or skip. I'm more than willing to spend a little bit of money if it will help me get the blog up and running.

For example I saw in Bob's How to Make Money With a Blog article that Aweber was mentioned for e-mails. I had also read in another article strongly recommending Aweber and saying that the e-mail subscription in Feedburner wasn't that good and use Aweber instead. That's fine but it costs $19/month. Is it worth it in the beginning, will it get me more e-mail subscribers, or should I just deal with Feedburner.

Are there any other examples of things that really benefit at the beginning, even it costs. Or great free alternatives?

I do plan on getting my own domain name and self host, and plan on using WordPress. I haven't started yet so I'm talking about something from the ground up.

[bob]

Kroz,
go for it! And when you do let us know your url so we can check it out!

As far as newsletters feedburner is free, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have gone with them. I still use them for the main feed because I don't really want to switch at this point. I use Aweber for some of my smaller newsletters, but if you don't want to start off paying $19, I have heard great things about mailchimp who is free until you get 500 (I think) subscribers and once you reach that point they start charging you...

[KrozFan]

Thanks Bob, I took a quick look at mailchimp and it looks good. Good to know you were less than satisfied with feedburner for e-mails too, backs up what I heard from another source. I just hate the thought of paying $19/month to send out e-mails to potentially only a handfull of people during the first few months.

Hopefully I'll have my blog up and running in a few months. I'm spending a little time here and there brainstorming, and as a few obligations fall off my plate I'm planning to ramp up the focus on the blog.